


Disappear, Like Magic

by Miss_Femm



Category: Wait Until Dark (1967)
Genre: F/M, Introspection, Melancholy, Post-Canon, Susy/Mike if you squint I guess, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 08:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Femm/pseuds/Miss_Femm
Summary: “But Mike,” she says after they’ve talked and talked, “what was it you wanted to tell me. You know, before…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. Even in the strange world of dreams, it feels rude to remind a man how he was murdered. (Introspective.)





	Disappear, Like Magic

In the years that follow, there are moments when Susy thinks about Mike Talman. It happens when she’s alone, either in the middle of doing laundry or walking home on a frigid January afternoon, and her memories race back years, pinpointing that brief instance when their paths crossed.

There were people she knew for years but barely reflected on—playground friends whose names she can’t recall, high school boyfriends whose faces are blurred in her memory, her old boss at the office job whose last communication with her was full of awkward sympathy when she resigned after it was clear she’d never see again. Mike is something else.

How could you know a man one day and then never forget him? Especially when there’s almost nothing pleasant to recall? Dead and buried a long time, yet she still remembers so much of him: the lines on his face beneath her fingers, his easy manner, the way she felt so much safer when he took her trembling hand in his, telling her everything would be okay. In those hours, there were little moments were she could have sworn she might fall in love with him: so charming, so sensitive, giving her all the care and sympathy a tough-fibered fellow like Sam was no longer willing to share.

But then again, that was “Mike,” wasn’t it? Not the man who called himself Mike, the criminal she knew for moments before everything dissolved beneath their feet. The same hands that had held hers in such sympathy when she confessed her fears about Carlino and Roat had also grabbed her roughly, came dangerously close to beating the whereabouts of the doll out of her.

But they didn’t, did they? And maybe that said more about the man who called himself Mike than his deceptions. In their final moments together, she most clearly remembers the weary resignation in his tone, as though he were a condemned man, as though part of him knew he were so close to dying.

Once Susy dreamt she met Mike again on some street corner on a winter day. It was one of those dreams where you know you’re speaking with a dead man, yet it feels so normal, as though the dead never really stop coming by for a chat. He looks the way she imagined he must have: handsome in a weary kind of way. He cheerfully tells her he lives on the other side of the country and travels often. He isn’t married. He’s happy. She touches his face with both hands; the lines are still there, like she remembers.  
“But Mike,” she says after they’ve talked and talked, “what was it you wanted to tell me. You know, before…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. Even in the strange world of dreams, it feels rude to remind a man how he was murdered.

She knows Mike replies, but she cannot hear him, and then she wakes up and Mike is still elusive as ever. Even her imagination won’t give her closure.

In reality, she knows things aren’t so wonderful. Mike might have run off and continued his career in New Orleans or Los Angeles or Seattle. But then again, maybe not.

It’s a shame Mike hadn’t been a magician after all, that he really couldn’t disappear and escape the consequences of his life choices. It’s a shame she would never really know him. Something tells her deep down, he was probably a man worthy of knowing. Or maybe she’s being silly again, believing the best of others.  
But then again, maybe not.

**Author's Note:**

> Felt compelled to write this on a rainy afternoon. I always thought there was a little something between Susy and Mike. Just a little and probably more from him than her.


End file.
